HT has a report today on how there have been a series of robberies in Mumbai recently using “China-made toy guns”—in some cases, “a China-made cigarette lighter impersonating … the United States of America-made .357 Magnum Cobra Colt revolver.” (Nationalists should be outraged at how neither the impersonator nor the impersonated are made in India.) The best line in the story is a quote from “an officer from the LT Marg police station”:
This (gun) toy does not invite the provisions of the stringent arms law.
That’s a bit irrelevant, no? Prosecuting robbers for robbery should be enough, I’d imagine, you don’t need to use the arms law here.
And I know there is nothing amusing about theft and suchlike, but I somehow find the thought of people being held up by cigarette lighters rather amusing. If stretched a bit, it can also act as a metaphor—for what else does Prakash Karat hold to Manmohan Singh’s head?